US-1299 First Landing SP

I don't typically hunt for popular parks to activate. You'll notice that the POTA Map color-codes references in a way that highlights parks that have been activated five or few times with a green spot, versus a red one for a park with more than five. That's my personal bias, I like to explore places where not a lot of folks have been. In this case, though, I was out on a rove in unfamiliar territory, following the coast down from Providence RI into North Carolina, then up the Blue Ridge Parkway, and I'll be honest, I wasn't looking for a challenging hike by the time I crossed over into Virginia.

It's tough to find a more popular spot than First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The park itself encompasses nearly 3,000 acres of Cape Henry and includes beaches, forests, swamps, recreation facilities for all ages, and nearly 20 miles of well-groomed trails. It's a major tourist attraction, which means that there's plenty of parking, signage, and things to do in the area.

On my rove I've been planning just one day out, so the day prior to driving down the DelMarVa peninsula and across the bridge into Virginia I'd pulled up POTA Map to see what was in front of me. I wanted to spend a little bit of time at the shore, even though it was January, and I was lodging in nearby Norfolk, so First Landing made the cut. Next, I took a look at the POTA.app page for the parks on my short list to see if any have info I might use in the comments. What popped out immediately was that activators at First Landing were also activation up to four additional references – there are several national and state trails and historic areas that pass through.

Here, for example, I took a look at one of the park leaders and saw that Marshall had found four additional references that pass through First Landing. I talked with a ham who lives in the area and has activated First Landing several times, and he told me about a few areas that would result in the five-fer.

You can do it, too. When you enter the park's main entrance, head to the right just after entering, toward the Trail Center, not far down the road. It's from here that most of the trailheads originate, and there's a visitor center with amenities and a large parking lot. Note that parking as of 2025 is $7 paid at a small gate.

Walk behind the Trail Center to access a series of boardwalks that carry you over a swampy area and into the heart of the trail system. These are bald cyprus and cedar swamps, and unless you already live in the south you'll find them to be a bit alien-looking. Stay to the right at your first major intersection.

Bald cyprus trees are fascinating. They tolerate extreme environments and can grow in unstable soil thanks to the buttresses that grow along the side of the trunk. The heartwood is highly resistant to rot and is dense and durable. You'll find cedars growing in the same spots, but the typical pattern is a swampy area of cyprus ringed by cedars growing up along ridges. The cyprus can live to be thousands of years old, with some of the oldest clocking in at over 2,000 years!

One of the most unusual features of the bald cyprus is the series of protruding 'knees' that grow around the trunk of the tree. I don't think we really know what they are used for yet, but my guess is that it helps stabilize the tree. Many of the larger swamps have benches to sit and think about this, and indeed you'll find little corners all over the park that have a bench tucked in for some quiet contemplation or bird-watching.

Speaking of birds, there are several distinct zones in the park – beach, forest, dune, wetland – and you'll see a variety of birds in each. I've discovered that birds are fascinated by the sound of CW coming from my IC-705's speaker, and they will flock around to see what the noise is. It's kind of a cool way to bird watch, they come to you! Toward the end of this activation a flock of robins decided that they needed to know what I was doing, and they were so loud that I had to turn the volume up (which of course attracted even more birds).

I set up the EFHW for this activation after hiking over a small ridge and along a deer path through a swamp into the next ridge, where I found a clearing. It was a warm day for January and I was happy to just sit and work pileups for a while. This happened to be Support Your Parks weekend and so there were extra hunters about. It also was the ARRL VHF Winter contest weekend, and my EFHW loads up just fine on 6m... No luck on CW but there was a single station, KN4LNI, calling CQ on 6m FT8, the only station I was copying, and that netted a 6m contact. They're tough!

The park and the day were so lovely that I spent another two hours hiking trails. The paths are wide and well-marked. Quite a few folks had the same idea that day, and so it felt a little crowded at times, a big change from my typical out-of-sight WMA activation where I'm the only person for miles. On the plus side there were plenty of Good Dogs to pet, and I found nice bench to sit on and think about the day.

One neat feature of the trail system here is that you'll find little 'loop' paths off of the main trail that are very short but take you to some interesting thing to see, maybe on overlook or an enormous cedar, or a waterfall. I took just about every one that I came across and I can tell you that it's well worth the little bit of extra time.

This was a really fun activation. It was an easy setup, and I discovered (at the advice of Sebastian KI2D) that PoLo handles n-fers really well. Just include all the parks that you are activating when you set up the log, and afterward it will generate a separate log for each reference. All you have to do is upload them to POTA.app. When you use PoLo's self-spotting feature it generates a spot with all of the parks, making it clear that you are handing out n-fers, and that attracts attention. I made 43 QSOs in 21 states and 2 DX on five bands in just over an hour and a half. For reference, the 5-fer here is:

• US-1299 First Landing State Park
• US-4567 Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail
• US-9907 First Landing National Recreation Trail
• US-9933 Beach to Bluegrass State Trail
• US-9935 Virginia Bird & Wildlife State Trail

Maybe you'll be the ham that finds number six...